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"Elementary My Dear Winston" is the 102nd episode of The Real Ghostbusters, first aired on September 23, 1989 as part of Season 5. The ghosts of Sherlock Holmes, his aide Dr. Watson, and the arch-criminal Professor Moriarty appear in Manhattan, and Moriarty sets out to absorb enough evil to become a living man. Winston Zeddemore, the team's resident reader of detective stories, is the one who recognizes them. The episode was written by Richard Mueller.1
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The production number was 201003.2 Voice work was recorded on June 14, 1989.2 The regular cast included Dave Coulier, Frank Welker, Maurice LaMarche, Buster Jones, Kath Soucie, and Rodger Bumpass, with Alan Shearman as a guest voice. On home video the episode is included on Volume 4, Disc 2 of the box set and in The Real Ghostbusters: Complete Collection.
Following the episode's original broadcast, DiC was contacted by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, who were impressed by the originality of the concept that a ghost could come into existence through collective human belief in it.
Moriarty and his Hound arrive in New York looking for evil spirit energy that would make Moriarty solid. After interrogating two frightened fishermen, Moriarty sends the Hound to seek out evil. The next day a second pair of ghosts, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, emerge from a subway stairwell in a vintage motor car and drive into traffic. Moriarty and the Hound trace the strongest concentration of evil to the Firehouse, where Slimer, Ray, Egon, and Winston are playing football in the garage bay.
Turning intangible, Moriarty and the Hound slip down to the basement and try to open the Containment Unit. The alarm trips before they can finish, the team races down, and Winston shuts the unit. Ray assumes Winston's stray pass knocked the release lever. Holmes and Watson arrive next; the team fires on them, and the pair leaves, with Holmes pausing outside to inspect a trail of green ectoplasm. Upstairs, Winston finds a picture of Sherlock Holmes in a book and realizes it matches one of the ghosts.
A call comes in from the Museum of Crime uptown, where Moriarty drains evil energy from the displays and grows stronger. The Ghostbusters' streams bounce off him, and he uses telekinesis to pin the team to a wall with sharp implements, then raises a guillotine blade. Holmes and Watson arrive in time, Watson crashing the motor car into the blade. The Hound traps Watson inside its rib cage and leaves with Moriarty. As Holmes chases the Hound, Peter traps Holmes, which leaves Winston unexpectedly upset.
Back at the Firehouse no one believes Winston's claim that they met the ghosts of fictional characters; Egon argues that beings who never existed cannot manifest as ghosts. Violin music drifts from the trap, and Winston releases Holmes, who asks Winston to guide him through the city. Holmes changes into period attire, and the pair drive the motor car through the wall and out into the city. Egon and Ray conclude this is a case of belief made manifest. Winston and Holmes track Moriarty to the New York City Public Library, where the motor car vanishes as they draw near, interrupting a play in progress, but Moriarty and the Hound escape again.
Holmes explains that if Moriarty absorbs enough evil he will become a living person. The team rushes back to stop him from opening the Containment Unit. Janine is cornered by the Hound and Louis gets locked in a closet, while Ray slips a trap to Slimer, who slides it beneath Ecto-1 to catch the Hound and pull Watson free. Moriarty opens the unit and begins drawing ghosts out, but Winston spots the football on the stairs and hurls it at the release lever, reversing the flow. As in Conan Doyle's story, Holmes grabs Moriarty and the two go over the edge, this time pulled into the Containment Unit; Watson follows them in, and Winston seals it. A farewell message is left on the football, and the team heads off to lunch as the faint sound of Holmes' violin playing the Ghostbusters theme drifts from inside the unit.
Featured ghosts include Professor James Moriarty (voiced by Rodger Bumpass), the Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. John H. Watson. Ray identifies Moriarty and the Hound as Vaporous Full Torso Apparitions; Egon later reclassifies all four as Free-Roaming Archetypes, and Ray rates Moriarty as a Class 6. Moriarty's abilities include flight, invisibility, generating cold spots, absorbing evil energy from tainted objects and ghosts, and immunity to proton streams; after visiting the Museum of Crime he gains telekinesis, and after drawing from the Containment Unit he can project electricity.
Supporting human characters include the fishermen Bert and Eddie and Mrs. Beagle, alongside the core team, Slimer, Janine, and Louis Tully. Locations include the Firehouse, the Museum of Crime, and the New York City Public Library.
Winston says during the episode that the current month is April. Sherlock Holmes explains that he learned the team's names by reading the name tags on their uniforms; the tag is visible here only on Egon's suit, whereas the names are usually visible on the live-action characters. In secondary canon, the name tags can also be seen on the cover of NOW Comics' "The Real Ghostbusters in Ghostbusters II" Issue #2.
The episode leans on several pop-culture jokes. When the team confronts Moriarty at the Museum of Crime, Peter imitates the Wicked Witch of the West from "The Wizard of Oz." At the library, a woman mistakes Holmes and Winston for Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, and Moriarty for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When Egon describes belief made manifest, Peter asks whether they will be fighting Darth Vader next. Moriarty calls himself the "Napoleon of Crime," and Peter answers with a pun on Caesar salad.
Ray notes Winston's taste for detective mysteries, a trait also shown earlier in the series episode "Boo-Dunit." When the team pulls up to the New York City Public Library, Peter recalls that their very first case began there, as seen in the first film, Ghostbusters. The premise that a ghost can come into being through belief returns later in Extreme Ghostbusters, in the episode "Deadliners."
Reichenbach Falls, referenced in the climax, is a series of waterfalls in central Switzerland; in Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Empty House," Holmes describes defeating Moriarty there on May 4, 1891.
Around the thirteen-minute mark the trim on Peter's jumpsuit is colored pink. Near the 14:23 mark, Ray is briefly voiced by Buster Jones by mistake.
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.